Seattle Schools Community Forum

From OSPI:

Update: I'm on the Mayor's e-mail list and got his latest newsletter .  What was the headline about the pre-k program? First year of preschool program a success, DEEL to increase per-child payments I'm not sure I would call it a success, given its many issues. The article gives a positive spin on nearly every issues like providers not signing up.  As well, it says: lowing providers who serve targeted populations to reserve a select number of spaces in their classroom to enroll on their own. - See more at: http://murray.seattle.gov/first-year-of-preschool-program-a-success-deel-to-increase-per-child-payments/#sthash.5NdwJ87j.rjdceFFJ.dpuf ...allowing providers who serve targeted populations to reserve a select number of spaces in their classroom to enroll on their own." Except, as the Times reported, those spaces could be filled by children from outside Seattle.  Whether or not there is room or a provider is near a city border is not the issue - the issu...

My impression of politicians who constantly beat the drum on a single issue is that they either have invested an awful lot of personal capital into the issue and/or they are great self-promoters. I see this in Councilman Tim Burgess who has made pre-K a key issue in his roster.  He was even able to get the Times to print a "news" story today that has no real news in it as a way to remind people it's his issue.  (I'm wondering why the Times felt compelled to print this story rather than allowing Burgess an op-ed.) His latest newsletter is a litany of "composite" stories about kids who live in the north end and kids who live in the south end.

Great story at KUOW about Highland Park and their "yoga breaths and mustang money."   Kudos to Principal Chris Cronas and his staff for their work.  "Do you know what grit is?" Cronas asks the students. "It's when you work really, really hard on something and you never give up on it." Next, the deep breathing. Cronas squeezes a rainbow-colored ball as he speaks quietly. “Let’s all practice our breathing with the ball and my voice. Ready? Go. In. Hold … one, two, three, four, five, six.” "This is not rocket science. This is Education 101. Kids need to feel safe. They need to feel respected," Cronas said. “They need to know that the people at their school love them and will give them the structure they need to succeed." For the School Board meeting tonight, the public testimony list is nearly full.  Most of them, including me, will be speaking to the Seattle Preschool Program Service Agreement.  Others are speaking on disci...

To note: SPS has just announced the start of a K-5 English Language Arts (ELA) instructional materials adoption.  The district is pretty fa  behind on putting current, standards-aligned instructional materials into classrooms district-wide.  The last formal ELA adoptions for elementary schools were basal readers in 2002 and Balanced Literacy in 2004.

Monday, Oct. 12th Board Curriculum&Instruction meeting from 4:30-630 pm at JSCEE.   Agenda Highlights: - there's a Race to the Top grant for the Seattle Teacher Residency.  The Board should reject this.  Why?  Because the relationship with one partner for the STR, the Alliance for Education, is tenuous and the district may be left holding the bag for this project.  I think that the district had the right idea but, like most district initiatives, did not have the long-term planning or backing to fulfill the mission. - Did you know our district has NO "Instructional Philosophy?"  Apparently not, as a new Board Policy A.01.00, has been written.  Sigh. Yes, that's the most important thing to get done. - High School Credit for World Languages (this is for both students who have taken a language as a second language and those whose first language isn't English and can receive credit for what they know in that second language). - Special Ed program...

Now that the Board accepted money to open three of the City's preschool programs (with about 11 others opening in SPS sites previously run by other providers), the Seattle Special Ed PTA has this notice: Families with preschoolers, I urge our families with preschoolers to apply for the Seattle Preschool Program (SPP) at any site. http://www.seattle.gov/education/child-care-and-preschool/seattle-preschool-program Your child will still be due the services, modifications and accommodations on her/his IEP, of course.  Seattle Schools has partnered with the City of Seattle's preschool program. At this time the difference between an SPP classroom and a Developmental Preschool classroom is that your child will receive more than double the hours, in an integrated setting.  Lunch is provided.  And of course you get transportation. Please share this with any families you think may benefit from this new opportunity. That's a fine idea that ANY Seattle preschooler could ha...

I will note that Director Murray has received no answer from the Mayor. I will note that Councilman Tim Burgess announced this week to an elementary school group that there WILL be 14 classrooms in SPS with the City's preschool plan.   Not "may" or "hopefully" but "will."  He did NOT mention the vote tonight by the Board nor did Director Marty McLaren.  In fact, McLaren said nothing about his statement in her own remarks. Done deal much? You will also recall that the Action Item on tonight's agenda has some Exhibits attached and that I had stated that there was no Exhibit "C."  Well, there is but it is not attached.  It's mentioned here in Exhibit B:

Update: here's the Executive Committee meeting agenda .  There are no links to any documents but t he agenda packet is 90 (!) pages.   Kids, that may be a record.  Highlights include the City's preschool program.

New section of Burke-Gilman at UW is open - there's a great view of Mt. Rainier from Rainier Vista.   If you want a shady spot to rest, come visit my husband's memorial bench in Sylvan Grove (right next to the Computer Science and Engineering building).  From Rooted in Rights , a story about disability activists who marched on Princeton University in June over controversial remarks by an ethics professor. 

I will add onto this thread soon about what the discussion was at the last Board meeting about the newest agreement with the City about their Seattle Preschool Program.  But a reader sent me a letter she had written to the Board that sums it up nicely but here it is in a nutshell: The District CANNOT be left on the hook for any kind of  operating dollars or administrative dollars for the SPP.  Period.   The Board  - via several members like Peters, Peaslee and Carr - have made that abundantly clear every single step of the way.  And yet District staff and the City now have it set up for the District to take on more costly work. I remind everyone that even the City  - in an e-mail about this issue - said that the District's "mandate" is K-12.  No one, for any reason, should take their eye off that mandate. 

Those two factors - a hot summer night and a full moon - might just set things off.  Word is that many Middle College supporters will be at the meeting and want to be heard.  Here are some updates from the supporters (and that includes me):

Despite the fact that most Board committees only meet once a month, here's another meeting of the Executive Committee for June.  With just a single item on the agenda.  What's that?  Why the next City/SPS Preschool agreement, of course. The odd thing here is that the Executive Committee meeting of the Whole, which was two weeks ago, saw this particular partnership agreement rejected by the Committee to even move it forward for consideration by the Board. Now the Executive Committee meeting of the Whole two weeks ago never had this preschool agreement attached to their agenda so I can't compare what has changed from that one to the new one. From the BAR: Space/Facilities: Seattle Public Schools is experiencing significant enrollment growthand does not have adequate capacity to meet it. Given the opportunity that exists with SPP, the City will be leading conversations to identify space. I almost do not have to write one more single word on this subject because tha...

Following up on the op-ed by Robert Crunkshank and me, here the the Families& Education Levy minutes/Mid-Year report from May 15, 2015. There are several statements made that tie with what Robert and I are seeing. It's a little funny because there are more staff there than actual committee members.  Superintendent Nyland is on the committee as is Marty McLaren ( I didn't know McLaren was on the committee.)  SPS staff include Pegi McEvoy and Charles Wright along with Jonathan Knapp of SEA.

It's been a long day so I can only be brief here (but I'll write more another day).  Two fairly interesting things happened at the School Board meeting tonight. One, there is considerable support for the Middle College High School program , both from community and some Board members.  Speaker after speaker rose to support the program and ask that the Middle College High School at the High Point Neighborhood Center not be closed.  Especially moving was testimony from a former student, Paul Campiche, who said that these were not "throwaway" students and "people who are the most disenfranchised need the most help."  He had been thru the Middle College program, then went to Evergreen and is now in the Master's program at Antioch for counseling.  Peaslee, Peters and Patu (the Peter, Paul and Mary of the Board), in their Board comments, all said they want a second look at this decision (or at least more discussion).   The other Board members were fairl...

The Executive Committee Meeting meets today at 4:30 pm.  Here's the agenda with two very important items - the partnership agreement with the City about their Seattle Preschool Program and Charles Wright's $1M+ Start of School Transformation Project.   The agenda also includes the draft Board meetings' agendas for the next month.   The May 20th agenda is a huge slog of capital projects but also includes review of the Covenant Agreement of Sale for MLK to FAME, RTTT funding for more " community-school partnerships," an OSPI Math/Science grant for middle school science for $1.5M and, of course, buying more portables.  It also has the introduction of the Seattle Preschool Program Partnership agreement.  (Please note that for the draft agenda, not all items are live-linked.) The June 3rd agenda has the approval of the SPP partnership and RTTT funds as well as introduction of an item "Research Activity and Test Administration Procedure" (I'm th...

One incumbent running, that is.  Director Peaslee today announced that, like Directors Carr and Martin-Morris, she will not be seeking another term on the Seattle School Board.  She says: Although serving on the Seattle School Board has been one of the more satisfying experiences of my life, it's now time to support my two children through college. She talks about the work still to be done and, like Director Carr, names the Seattle Pre-K program.  I have to say the public push for this program by the Board is interesting given how little attention it had before its passage by them.  (Or at least, publicly.)  It almost makes me wonder if any of these directors will have a second act in the City's Office of Education. What's fascinating is that the Board, with three members leaving in December is going to continue to devote a chunk of time on learning about governance.  I find that baffling for a group of smart people who have had numerous "board...

Well, a lot of convergence on School Board races yesterday and it probably leaves just one incumbent standing for reelection - Marty McLaren.   I can direct potential candidates in District 1 (Sharon Peaslee) to people who know campaigns/School Board work for anyone who might be considering a run at the position.  Contact me at sss.westbrook@gmail.com. I saw Director Carr's farewell e-mail.  She lists accomplishments over her eight years on the Board "working together as a Seattle Public Schools governance team" and I was astonished to see "began foundational work for a universal preschool partnership with the City of Seattle" on the list.  Did you hear that the NSA doesn't want to go in the backdoor for your data ?  Nope, they want the key to the front door....from Google (and others).  From Extreme Tech : Instead of handing the NSA a unilateral window into encrypted communications taking place at Google or Apple, Rogers suggested a f...

The Work Session today is going to be wide-ranging and vital to the work of the district (well, part of it). The first part - the useless part - is about whether the district should become a charter school authorizer.  This should be the quickest part of the entire Work Session because the Board should say NO.  There is NO good reason and many reasons why not.  See my letter to the Board below. The second part is around the Strategic Plan.  Here's the huge presentation .  Here's what staff says they heard at the Jan. 14, 2015 Work Session on this topic: Fix the infrastructure before building improvements – System has been broken for a long time – The Superintendent can propose course corrections to the strategic plan Identify highest value work – “Think Big... Get it right ” – We need to explicitly prioritize and sequence work – We need to identify what will be pushed out to later dates or stopped – Directors need to be able to clearly justify why we may...

Monday, October 13th Curriculum&Instruction Committee meeting from 4:30-6:30 pm at JSCEE. There quite a jam-packed agenda here including discussion of Advanced Learning/Highly Capable programs and discussion about the Board endorsing Prop 1B, the City's preschool measure. I note that the name of this item has changed: BAR for P-5 Schools Aligned with Seattle Preschool Program Universal Pre-K Initiative It a bit amusing as the City rebrands the name of their preschool initiative over and over.  But again, pre-k is NOT the district's state mandate nor are they state funded for it.   At Publicola, there is one person saying that Cashel Toner, who is the district's person for Early Learning, has been working with the Gates Foundation on aligning SPS with this effort via a $750K grant.  (This person says there are e-mails to show this and I hope to see them soon.)  I can only say that in e-mails I have obtained, Toner is very in the loop with many City peo...